Spring Geography

Things appear suddenly
not new but as they remain
left over from the winter

for example. dead logs
caught in the brush at all angles
a breathing pushes out of them

a picture in the warmer air
to the surfaces of our skin and eyes

a handfull of dead fingernails
I love you today
like I have never before

fingers and hair. dead logs
heads hands twigs sticks
leaves grass the suddenness

and warm air shimmering
off the hood of a green
47 Dodge pickup

come out of the clouds
the road down
to the lake

[So Far, 1991: 38]


Columbia Clutch

some rust maybe
or an old tire on the shore
but internal combustion
makes no sense the shape

of the current isn’t diesel
though the trains get grade
geology all
comes down to history

the nation an imitation
locomotive rolling stock
‘ol “Roll On Columbia”
time traces depth never

thought of a car as deep.
the canoe, too.

[First published in Politics/Letters, Feb. 15, 2018]


Photo © Halcyon Ploss